The Hot Pilots (41 page)

Steve hadn’t missed the lack of communications. It had been very enjoyable to have made all of these flights in heavenly silence.
And it’s certainly to my benefit that we can’t communicate today
, Steve thought.
They can’t tell me to stop
—

It was not going to be a fair fight for the Israelis, he reminded himself as he began his intercept course on the pair of
Tyran IIs. Each Tyran was loaded down with twin 30-millimeter cannons and a pair of extended-range fuel drop tanks. The MIG
had no drop tanks, and though she had been equipped with 23-millimeter cannon, the weaponry had been removed for analysis
by Israeli weapons specialists. The decreased weight gave a speed and maneuverability advantage to the MIG. On the other hand,
score a two-against-one advantage for the Israelis.

The pair of Tyran IIs was typically arranged with the leader flying lower and somewhat ahead of his wingman. As Steve closed
the gap he knew that the Israeli pilots were watching him. He settled onto the wingman’s six o’clock and waited.

The pair begin to jink, most likely trying through an aerial pantomime to get Steve to disengage. He patiently stayed on their
tails, aware that because he couldn’t radio the Israeli drivers a challenge, it was going to take them awhile to figure out
what was happening.

Through his helmet headset he could hear the two pilots conversing in their national tongue with each other, and with ground
control. Then Steve heard Benny Detkin’s unmistakable voice joining the Hebrew conversation. Steve didn’t know what anyone
was saying, but from the tone of the various exchanges he could tell that nobody was terribly angry. As a matter of fact,
one of the pilots was chuckling—

The pair of Tyran IIs abruptly broke apart into a defensive split. The high man—Steve immediately dubbed him Alpha —went to
afterburn, zooming up toward the sun. The low man—Beta—banked sharply, and barrel-roll dived away from the fray.

Steve, grinning, kicked in his own afterburner, and went after the high man, knowing that he would be the most immediately
dangerous. It would take Alpha far less time to drop down on Steve than it would low-breaking Beta to circle around and then
climb to set up an ambush.

The Alpha Tyran was already whipping around in a vertical reverse: topping out in his climb, fluttering in the sky as all
speed was lost, and then ruddering his bird sideways and around into a steep dive. Steve had to give the IAF pilot credit
as he watched the guy successfully complete his move. Delta-winged aircraft were not at their best at the sudden low speeds
characteristic of the vertical reverse. In less capable hands the Tyran might have gone into a stall.

Alpha was now diving toward Steve, who was simultaneously zooming up toward the Tyran in a head-on game of chicken. Steve
craned his neck, cursing the MIG’s poor visibility as he searched the sky for the Beta Tyran. Finally he spotted the jet,
and saw that he still had time to deal with Alpha before Beta became a concern.

The Alpha Tyran was still coming head-on. Steve decided on an offset head-on pass; a maneuver for which the agile MIG was
born and bred.

He waited until the Tyran II loomed huge in his foreward windscreen and then Steve veered to the left, angling slightly below
the attacking jet. In quick response, the Tyran broke right. Now both jets were banked sharply in opposite directions, but
Steve, by stressing the MIG to the utmost, was able to corkscrew around in the tighter turn. The Alpha Tyran was still skating
around when Steve was able to straighten out and settle on its six o’clock.

Alpha began jinking, trying to lose Steve. Steve, keeping an eye peeled for the Beta Tyran, managed to stay locked onto Alpha
for five seconds. He then had to break as the Beta Tyran began to close on his tail.

As Steve banked away from the Alpha he knew that he’d won the first part of the mock dogfight. Five seconds would have been
plenty of time to blast the Tyran out of the sky with a cannon. He had no camera on the MIG to record his mock victory, but
he knew that downstairs they would have been watching the whole thing. He wondered what Benny and the Air Force operations
people at the base were thinking…

Steve also wondered what the Alpha pilot was thinking. Would he continue the fight, or withdraw, as honor dictated he should
do because he had hypothetically been waxed? Steve was pleased to see the Alpha pilot do the right thing, banking away from
the fight, although he did stay in the vicinity. Steve understood the reason for that: The Tyran II pair’s original purpose
for being here was to protect the MIG against a possible Arab attack.

It was time to deal with Beta—

Steve put the MIG into a vector roll: He pulled up hard, banked into a turn, and then barrel-rolled his airplane so that it
was suddenly twirling in the opposite direction from that turn. The Tyran pilot, realizing that he had been set up to overshoot,
disengaged by breaking into his own turn in order to regain the speed and altitude he would need to once again come down on
Steve’s six o’clock.

Steve quickly stood the MIG on her ear, whipping her around so that she resembled a dog—a borzoi—chasing her own tail. The
sharp maneuver put the MIG behind and above the still-banking Tyran. By dropping the MIG’s nose Steve could set up for what
would have been a fairly decent deflection shot.

The Tyran pilot immediately realized Steve’s advantage, and broke sharply in the direction of Steve’s attack approach. Steve,
all the while gaining velocity in his dive, cursed himself for falling for the IAF pilot’s trick as the MIG duly overshot
the Tyran. Now Steve found himself once again below and behind the Israeli jet, which had quickly reversed, in order to attack
the MIG. Steve executed his own reverse turn in order to deny the Tyran a firing opportunity. The Tyran immediately copied
Steve’s reverse turn, so that now
he
was back on
Steve’s
six o’clock. Steve reversed, and now the horizon was spinning like an airplane’s prop as he and the IAF pilot repeatedly
exchanged positions, playing out their scissoring ballet across the sky.

Finally, Steve’s lighter, more maneuverable MIG gained the advantage, forcing the cannon and drop tank burdened Tyran II out
in front. Steve stayed locked onto the Tyran’s six o’clock until its driver waggled his wings, indicating that he knew he’d
been shot down.

Good fight, son
, Steve thought. He pulled abreast of the Tyran II. Once he had the IAF pilot’s attention, Steve waved to him and then waggled
the MIG’s wings in order to salute the guy for leading him on such a merry chase.

As Steve headed back to base he thought that the furball he’d just engaged in was likely nothing to what he would soon be
experiencing on the ground.

Steve brought the MIG down, turned her over to the ground crew who would check her out before towing her into her hangar,
and then went to the pilot’s personal equipment shack to change out of his gear. He was stowing his equipment in the locker
when a tight-lipped Benny Detkin came into the shack.

“Benny, I know what you’re going to say,” Steve began quickly, hoping to head off his friend’s tirade.

“Do you now?” Benny asked coolly, his expression deadpan.

“I know I disobeyed orders by challenging those Tyrans,” Steve hurriedly continued. “But I did it for a good reason—”

Benny nodded. “What you mean is that you did it because you wanted to—”

“No!” Steve protested. “Well, I mean, sure I
wanted
to.” He couldn’t help grinning.

“Hmmm …” Benny scowled knowingly.

“But I also learned a lot of valuable stuff about the MIG—” Steve quickly added as the pilots who had been flying the Tyran
II’s that he’d just waxed came into the shack to change out of their gear. “Hi, guys.” Steve grinned. “No hard feelings, right?”

“No, of course not.” One of the pilots smiled.

The other pilot was also smiling, nodding his head in agreement. They were both skinny, dark-haired guys. The one who’d been
nodding had a bad case of acne. They both looked like they should be in high school, not in the cockpits of fighter jets.

“If that fight had been for real, you would have been carrying auxiliary tanks and weapons,” the pilot with the acne good-naturedly
accused in thickly accented English. “Loaded down as I was, your MIG would not have had the advantage.”

“Sure I would have,” Steve said softly. “If that fight had been for real, I would have punched my drop tanks,” Steve explained.
“Cleaned up, my MIG would have gotten the better of you just the way it did just now, and then I would have taken you out
with my cannon.”

“You would have wasted auxiliary tanks?” the Israeli pilot asked, appalled. “They cost so much money—”

“Look,” Steve interrupted. “I know this country has to scrounge dearly to find the funds to buy weapons …”

He paused, wondering if he had the right to continue with what he wanted to say. He glanced at Benny, who nodded.

“Okay, listen guys—” Steve began again, returning his attention to the two young pilots. “When you’re in a dogfight, you can’t
be thinking dollars and cents. Take the situation we were just in, what’s the better choice? To waste a couple of drop tanks,
or lose a pilot and his aircraft?”

“He’s right,” Benny interjected. “If you’re going to do the job you must have your priorities straight.” He paused. “We’ll
talk more about this later. For now, would you men excuse us for a few moments? I’d like to speak with the colonel in private.”

Steve waited until the two pilots had exited the shack and then said, “Look, Benny, let me save you some trouble. I know what
this dinner you’ve got planned for tonight is all about.”

“You do, huh?” Benny asked skeptically.

“Sure, it’s intended to be my kiss-off, but that’s okay. I’ll finish up here, head back to Tel Aviv to pack up, and—”

“Just shut up a minute,” Benny said. “It so happens that’s not at all the purpose of tonight’s dinner. The purpose of the
dinner is to convince you to stay—”

“Huh?” Steve stared blankly. “What are you talking about?”

Benny hesitated. “Ah, what the hell. If you can break a few rules, so can I … I’m going to tell you what’s been planned for
tonight so that you’ll have a little more time to think about it, but I’d appreciate it if tonight you’d act surprised when
the subject is brought up. The IAF is going to ask you to stay on for a few more months, in order to head up a training program
for our fighter squadrons in combat techniques.”

“You’re shitting me?” Steve blurted happily. “I can’t believe it!”

“Why not?” Benny shrugged. “It’s not that unusual. There are American military advisers training armed forces in Indochina
and South America, so why not one working with an ally like Israel? The Air Force brass here have been watching you put that
MIG through its paces for some time now. What you accomplished dogfighting today—despite the fact that you were specifically
told not to—will only strengthen the IAF’s resolve to keep you on. If you’re agreeable, the IAF will make an official request
to the USAF that you be allowed to remain.”

“I’m agreeable, I’m agreeable,” Steve said quickly. “The more flying I get to do the better, and the opportunity to spend
my time concentrating on nothing but fighter strategy and tactics makes me happier than a pig in shit.”

Benny winced. “Just try and think up a little bit nicer reply for when the offer is put to you at dinner tonight,” he icily
suggested, turning to go.

“Roger, old buddy!” Steve said. “Oh, and naturally I’ll need Rivka to continue acting as my assistant when I set up this training
program—?”

“Naturally.” Benny nodded, straight-faced. “It’s a given that fighter jocks are more aggressive when they’ve got lots of pent-up,
frustrated sexual energy.”

“She can’t deny me forever.” Steve laughed.

“Famous last words,” Benny said gloatingly. “Oh, and by the way, I’ll be participating in the training whenever I’m in Israel
…”

“You want to see if something of the old master can rub off on you, huh?” Steve asked innocently.

Benny winked. “I just want to keep you properly humble; although it appears that Rivka is accomplishing that quite well on
her own.”

Herman Gold’s desk was piled high with work. It was a Saturday afternoon, but lately Gold had taken to coming into the office
on weekends in order to catch up.

The GAT production lines ran seven days a week around the clock, and Gold suspected that if he went down to the design department
he’d find a couple of engineers busy at their drafting tables, but on weekends the executive and sales offices were closed
tight. The lack of ringing telephones and people at Gold’s office door allowed him the uninterrupted time he needed to clear
the decks for the coming week.

Because the office was officially closed, Gold was dressed casually. He was hunched over in his chair, working an adding machine
as he slugged his way through some ponderous cost analysis sheets. The Air Force had been complaining about design defects
in the Super-BroadSword. The cost analysis sheets itemized the contemplated running changes that must be made in the GAT production
lines to try to rectify the problems.

“Grandpa?”

“What is it, Andy?” Gold asked, glancing up over his bifocals.

His nine-year-old grandson, dressed in white tennis shorts, a T-shirt, and blue sneakers, was sprawled out on a sofa, idly
flipping through a comic book. “How much longer do we have to stay, Grandpa?”

Andy’s parents had gone away for the weekend, so Gold and his wife had volunteered to take the boy, in lieu of leaving him
in the care of the Harrisons’ housekeeper. Gold had known better than to bring the kid to the office with him, but Andy had
begged and pleaded, and it tickled Gold that his grandson seemed interested in the business.